LONDON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- Criticism emerged Saturday over alleged abuses of prisoners by Iraqi national security forces contained in documents published by the Web site WikiLeaks.
Amnesty International called for an official government investigation into the charges.
As with other "wiki" sites, information can be posted by anyone and WikiLeaks did not identify the source of the hundreds of thousands of documents that allegedly contain information of prisoner abuse. However, the U.S. Defense department said an Army private would be prosecuted for releasing classified information.
The Web site claimed the number of Iraqi civilian deaths was much higher than the U.S. military disclosed and abuse of prisoners by Iraqi security forces was common and often ignored by U.S. forces.
The documents also allege the U.S. military came to increasingly rely upon private contractors to perform prisoner management.
Amnesty International acknowledged in its release from London: "We have not yet had an opportunity to study the leaked files in detail."
WikiLeaks gave an estimated 400,000 pages of documents to The New York Times, The Guardian newspaper in England, Le Monde of France and Der Spiegel of Germany, along with a condition it was embargoed until Friday.
